Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described herein are not prior art to the claims in the present application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
In fiber-optic communication networks, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) is a technology which multiplexes multiple optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths of laser light for each of the optical carrier signals. The optical carrier signals of different wavelength are sometimes referred to as wavelength (or frequency) channels.
Some WDM systems employ assemblies of cascaded dielectric filters to combine-or multiplex- the individual wavelength channels for transmission over an optical fiber or to separate- or demultiplex- the individual wavelength channels after transmission over an optical fiber. Such a WDM system of n wavelengths requires (n−1) filters each for multiplexing and de-multiplexing. In addition, the cost of each filter increases sharply with the density of the wavelength grid mainly due to yield loss in the manufacturing process.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one exemplary technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.